


underneath your weather

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Christmas 2020 [2]
Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Death, Developing Relationship, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Marta might count Harlan a friend, but she's happy to keep the other Thrombeys at a politely professional distance.And then Ransom happens. And then Ransomkeepshappening.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera & Harlan Thrombey, Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Series: Christmas 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044885
Comments: 38
Kudos: 341





	underneath your weather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



> HAPPIEST OF CHRISTMASES MY LOVE
> 
> Anyway this was supposed to be a fast and dirty smut fic and instead it's this. Maybe for yr birthday??? Who knows what the future holds, babe.
> 
> Title from _Undertow_ by Lisa Hannigan.

Everyone hates Ransom. 

The staff, particularly, because he’s so impossibly terrible to them. The insistence that they use his first name, that _no one_ uses aside from the _help._ Marta had thought he was going to try that shit on her, the first time they actually spoke to one another - Harlan had asked her to call Ransom up to his study for something, and she, sure that Fran was exaggerating, had called him by his name.

Only Harlan’s appearance at her shoulder had saved her from his temper. She remains sure of that, even now. Ransom snipes and slices at Harlan as much as any of the others do, but he seems to recognise that age and senility have not gone hand in hand with Harlan, and even though they probably fight more than any of the other Thrombeys dare, she sometimes thinks that Ransom’s the only one who really _sees_ Harlan. Sees him the way Marta does. Sees why the staff like Harlan, but can’t stand any of the others. 

That must be so hard for him. Knowing they hate him, and knowing _why._ Except if it was hard, he’d change his behaviour - Marta knows that she would, at least. Maybe that’s why she pointedly refuses to call him _Hugh,_ even when he drops fantastically unsubtle hints that he thinks she’s become overfamiliar every time she calls him by name.

She hates him too, mostly. It’s only _mostly_ instead of _entirely_ because Harlan enjoys his company so much.

* * *

Sometimes Ransom calls Marta _chica._ It makes her want to stab him in the neck, with one of the good knives Harlan has hidden among all the trick blades, but even Harlan couldn’t get her out of a murder rap. So she maintains a carefully dignified silence, tucks her hands a little deeper into the cuffs of her cardigan, and tries to ignore him. 

He’s hard to ignore. He visits more than the other Thrombeys do, and seems to bring out something in Harlan that the others don’t. They bicker and fight, they play Go, and they smoke cigars that Marta pretends not to smell in Harlan’s office, sometimes, and Harlan is always _energised_ by Ransom’s visits. 

In her less charitable moments, when she’s tired or has had to stay on an extra hour because Joni or, worse still, _Donna_ has dropped by with some kind of request, that she speculates that Harlan gives Ransom a lot more leeway than he gives everyone else because he sees himself in his grandson. Marta loves Harlan, but she’s heard the stories about his youth, and she knows he has a temper. She knows what he was like before he mellowed with age and morphine. Not with her, he’s never so much as raised his voice with her, and she can’t imagine him burning as hot as Ransom does, but it _is_ there. 

Maybe that’s all the appeal is. He’s smart and he’s mean and he’s handsome, sure - Marta can’t lie, not even to herself - but there’s some trick, distorted reflection of Harlan in Ransom, and she’s a little drawn to him because something in him reminds her of her friend.

And then he calls her _chica_ again, and she remembers that all she really wants in life is to stick pins in his eyes, and she feels better.

* * *

One day, after another disastrous Thrombey party, she overhears Linda and Richard talking about her. They’re speculating as to whether she’s salaried or on an hourly rate, because it’s always about Harlan’s money with the Thrombeys.

She’s salaried, for the record. Generously so, so much so that she’d been anxious about even interviewing for the job initially. It’s not _Thrombey_ money, of course, but it’s a lot better than any of her friends from school are making this soon out of college, and it’s a lot easier than what just about any of them are doing.

But Linda and Richard, who are generally friendly and polite if a little condescending to her face, mostly because she never has to speak with either one of them unless Harlan is also there, are speculating about her, and wondering if Harlan can be convinced to hire a less expensive nurse, or a live-in nurse, or an agency to keep costs down. The cheapness of rich people never fails to astonish her, but she keeps quiet, and hopes they’ll move away from the bathroom door soon so she doesn’t look like an eavesdropper.

Richard says, “I know Harlan likes her, but there are probably a dozen Brazilian nurses-”

“Jesus, Dad,” Ransom cuts in, appearing in the midst of the conversation from nowhere. “She doesn’t even speak Portuguese. C’mon, Grandpa’s looking for us.”

Richard and Linda depart - Marta knows the click of Linda’s always sharp shoes, and Richard generally follows in her wake. She waits, lets out a slow breath, and prepares to emerge.

Someone - Ransom! - knocks on the bathroom door. 

“You can come out now,” he says quietly, sounding amused by the whole circumstance. “Granddad sent me to rescue you from the dragons, Princess.”

He doesn’t call her _chica_ anymore, after that. After bowing low at her as she scurries past, he calls her _princesa,_ which is much, much worse.

* * *

Harlan, with that strange twinkle in his eye, talks her into playing Go with Ransom, and she wipes the floor with him. Mostly because he didn’t even try, assuming as he did that she must be shit and Harlan was just indulging her out of whatever weird, probably sexual affection she knows Ransom imagines between herself and his grandfather.

She wins three of the five games they play. The first two, and the last. Harlan’s laughter follows Ransom all the way out to his ugly car.

“He likes you, you know,” Harlan says, still chuckling. “And even if he doesn’t, I think you do him a lot of good. As much as you do me, if not more.”

Marta makes a sceptical noise, which draws a _look_ from Harlan.

“I’m so much older than you,” he says, in the voice he usually keeps just for Joni at her most annoying, “that I _always_ know better about these things.”

That strange twinkle is still in his eye, and Marta doesn’t trust it one bit.

* * *

Harlan hosts a Fourth of July barbeque, and someone - Joni, probably, because the others are too jealous to risk sharing Harlan with outsiders - invites what feels like half of everyone involved in the publishing industry in America.

Walt makes his best attempt at schmoozing, but he’s more of a jitterer, especially with Donna cutting her way through the room on his arm and Jacob making his displeasure at having to be among _normal people_ loudly known. He, at least, disappears off to be horrible online somewhere in the house, but Walt and Donna keep going. And going. And _going._

Linda and Richard are doing a lot better - Linda, if she wasn’t Linda, is someone Marta might like. She’s clever and sharp, like Harlan, and what she lacks in raw charm, Richard supplies. Together, they’re very effective, and meander seemingly carelessly in Walt and Donna’s wakes, tidying up their messes.

Joni is being Joni, which as far as Marta’s concerned usually translates to something like “behaving like an idiot and raising Harlan’s blood pressure” - flittering here and there, usually sticking to the younger end of the party, trying to talk sincerely about holistic therapy in a way that makes it sound like less of a pyramid scheme. Harlan is too far away to overhear her, ensconced on a deckchair under a striped umbrella with Great Nana for company - good. Harlan adores his mother, and he’s always in a better mood after spending time with her, whispering and giggling to one another, sharing stories no one else remembers.

“Oh my _God,”_ Meg groans, nudging her vintage Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses down her nose so that she can look over them condescendingly. They’re sitting on the deck railing, Meg smoking and Marta sipping a lemonade, and overall it’s been a nice day. All the publishing people Joni or whoever invited don’t care about Harlan’s _little Hispanic nurse_ or his _delinquent granddaughter,_ so they’ve been left alone, more or less. Marta couldn’t really ask for more. “Can you _believe_ him?”

_Him,_ of course, is Ransom, arriving now in a shiny convertible that definitely isn’t his beloved Beemer. He has a couple of friends with him, two girls and two guys, and they’re all dressed like something out of an Abercrombie catalogue - except Abercrombie is so far below Ransom’s notice as to be laughable. Marta knows this, because she called him a poor woman’s Abercrombie model while they were arguing over a disputed game of Go, and he’d been more insulted that she thought he was _only_ hot enough to model for Abercrombie than that she thought he was cheating.

He looks good. He looks _really_ good, in a tight white button-down shirt that shows off the tan he brought home from St Lucia and knee-length navy shorts that make his thighs look insane, and _boat shoes,_ because of course he’s wearing boat shoes. His friends slide right into the crowd, at ease there because they probably already know most of the other guests, but Ransom comes to lean against the railing with Marta and Meg, grinning up at them from behind sunglasses that probably cost even more than Meg’s.

“Margaret,” he says, just to see Meg fume. “Cabrera.”

A definite step up from _princesa._

“I wish I could put this out in your throat,” Meg says without true venom, waving her cigarette. “Want one?”

“What’s stopping you, Meggo?” he teases, tilting his head back to expose his throat to her in clear challenge - typical Thrombeys, turning everything into a game of chicken. “And nah, I’m good - gave up smoking after the last lecture from Nursey here.”

“Oh, _please_ ,” Marta laughs, rolling her eyes. “If Harlan doesn’t listen to me, despite the fact that he pays me to look after his health, and the fact that he _likes_ me, why would _you?”_

Ransom’s blandly smug smile falters for less than a second. Marta doesn’t know how she even catches it, but she does - a crack in his impeccable, impenetrable white boy armour. Weird.

“Who says _I_ don’t like you, Cabrera?” he asks, and while he has Meg fooled, Marta can hear the difference in his voice now. “‘Sides, you made such a compelling case for me to stop smoking Cubans with Granddad - you even leaned over the bannister for me, to make sure I didn’t get bored mid-lecture.”

She rolls her eyes. Meg, who she’s only realised is behind her, absolutely not the focus of Ransom’s attention, gags.

Ransom is looking right at her. His sunglasses and hers - which cost maybe five dollars, if even that much - break his gaze a little, but he’s _looking right at her._ Usually he only does that over games of Go, and she feels strangely exposed with only her glass of lemonade, wearing a pretty white sundress with a navy floral print that Alice bought last summer and never wore.

“I like you _plenty,_ Cabrera,” he says, nudging his elbow against her knee. 

Marta falls clean off the railing, lands face down in the grass below. Ransom isn’t far behind her.

* * *

So. Soulmates.

It isn’t that they’re uncommon - it’s more that people have decided they don’t really matter, so they don’t seek them out anymore. There used to be parties where people would just spend the entire time shaking hands, trying to find their predestined other half. Nowadays it’s mostly assumed that if you’re soulmates, the universe will conspire to bring you together, and if you don’t have one, hey, the universe doesn’t care so you get to make your own happiness.

So they don’t matter, until you have one, and then they absolutely do.

“Did I ever tell you how I met Eloise? How we figured we were a matched pair?” Harlan asks, holding a bag of ice to Marta’s forehead while she straps up her rapidly swelling knee. Her skin is scalding hot, feverish in a way that won’t show if she takes her temperature, and the ice is helping with that a little. 

Well, until a dribble of meltwater slides down her neck and she loses a full fifteen seconds to a flash of what it would feel like to have Ransom’s tongue on that same path. She pushes that aside _hard,_ if only because his literal grandfather is standing right beside her, and thinks instead about all the possible things that she could have done to her knee when she fell. Maybe she cracked her kneecap, and she’ll need to be knocked out for surgery, and she’ll be out long enough that this _heat_ will have passed through her system by the time she wakes up.

If not, well, she knows where all the drugs are kept in the house. She can probably knock herself and Ransom out for a few hours, if she’s careful. Someone else will have to administer his dose, of course, because she doesn’t trust herself not to climb into his lap-

She takes a deep breath, in through her nose, and right back out through her nose, because the idea of being in Ransom’s lap is more than she can handle right now and she doesn’t trust her mouth. 

Meg comes in with a jug of lemonade, rattling with ice cubes - Fran. Fran the _angel,_ who had understood before anyone else had and sprinted out from the kitchen to drag Marta away from Ransom. If she hadn’t done that, well, first of all there’d be no hiding what had happened, and secondly, Marta and Ransom would’ve been guilty of public indecency, probably, and that wouldn’t look good on Marta’s resume when she applies for her next job.

Because no _way_ can she keep working for Harlan now that his stupid, beautiful grandson is her stupid, infuriating _soulmate._

God. Even just the thought of him has her squirming. She’s glad that he had the presence of mind to make a break for it, and has apparently locked himself away in Harlan’s office upstairs - that’s good. No one in the house except Harlan and Marta have keys, and Marta absolutely isn’t thinking about how she could slip away from Harlan while he and Meg are talking quietly over the lemonade and let herself into the office where Ransom is. That close, warm little office, above the rest of the house, where everyone would _hear_ them-

The ice pack returns, this time to the back of her neck. She startles so badly that she jars her knee, and the pain of that gives her back some small measure of control.

“I met Eloise,” he says, “at a fancy publisher’s party. She was married to my editor at the time. We’d met before, briefly, but only during the winter.”

“No exposed skin in the winter,” Marta says, wishing her voice didn’t sound so thin and reedy. She doesn’t think she’s ever been so embarrassed. “Harlan-”

“We slipped away and fucked in a closet,” he says, much to Meg’s vocal dismay. “Her husband found us and dragged me out with my pants around my ankles. So, still feeling like you’ve had the worst first touch of all time?”

She’s laughing, as much at Meg’s reaction as Harlan’s story, and that’s good. That’s what she should focus on right now. That maybe this isn’t as bad as she thinks it is. That maybe, aside from what would definitely be the best sex of her life-

Wow. No. Absolutely not. Don’t think about that.

That maybe, aside from the rush of attraction caused by a soulbond rearing its head, things aren’t as intense as they seem. Once she and Ransom ride out this initial wave, things should settle down, and they can have a sensible, adult conversation-

Oh, who is she kidding? She wants to fuck him so badly she could scream, and once that’s done, it’ll be back to _chica_ and _princesa_ and Cabrera, and _she doesn’t speak Portuguese_ but does he know anything about her beyond that? No, because he’s a Thrombey, and aside from Harlan and Great Nana and _mostly_ Meg, the Thrombeys _suck._ She can’t quite figure out what she’s done to deserve being tied to Ransom for eternity, but here she is, tangled soul-deep with someone who she doesn’t even like, and she’s got to deal with that.

Just as soon as she’s come, like, maybe five or six times. Or knocked herself out for twelve hours.

* * *

Marta calls her mom, explains that she’s got to stay overnight at Harlan’s house, and not to worry, she’ll be home tomorrow. It’s really nothing to worry about, Mama, don’t stress!

Harlan knocks on the door of the guest room as soon as she’s hung up, looking more sympathetic than she thinks the situation warrants.

“Linda wants to speak with you,” he says, not looking _nearly_ as sympathetic as she deserves. Linda is by far and away the smartest of Harlan’s children and children-in-law, but she’s also the meanest - not the nastiest, that’s Walt’s particular honour, because there must be something truly terrible under his ugly sweaters to have attracted Donna - and the most likely to be vicious. “Oh, now, don’t look at me like that, she’s not _that_ bad-”

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” Linda says, shoulder resting against the door frame. She looks ruffled, which Marta has never known her to be before, and tense, which she has. “Feeling really appreciated. May I?”

“Please, come in,” Marta says, extremely aware of the fact that she’s wearing a borrowed pair of Harlan’s old man striped pyjamas, sleeves and legs rolled up to free her hands and feet. Linda is still wearing her clothes from the party, fitted egg-yolk yellow pants with dove grey sleeveless blouse and high pointy shoes, but she looks just a little dishevelled and, as soon as she sits down in the comfortable, overstuffed armchair in the corner of the room, she kicks off her shoes. 

“Hell of a day, huh?” she says, her smile wry. “Meg said you hurt your ankle?”

“My knee,” Marta says, sitting on the edge of the bed. Harlan stays standing, closer to her than to Linda. Which of them is more dangerous? Marta isn’t sure. “How’s Ransom?”

Something flickers across Linda’s face, a flash of _something_ that Marta might have missed had she not been watching for it - just like that strange shift in Ransom’s smile earlier in the day. 

“He’s keeping it together,” Linda says. “Came down hard on his shoulder. His dad is with him right now. He, uh. Didn’t want me in the room. Thought it was inappropriate.”

Marta laughs, because the idea of Ransom, provocateur at large, thinking something is _inappropriate_ means that he’s at least as badly off as she is.

“Yeah,” Linda agrees, smiling just a little. “That’s what I said, too.”

In the quiet, Harlan sits beside Marta. Linda sighs.

“My soulmate was a jackass, too,” Linda says. “We can’t all be like Harlan and Eloise, right? So if you want out of this, I’ll talk Ransom around. He’s stubborn, but he’s not stupid, and there’s nothing he likes less than having to think about anyone else’s feelings.”

She points one sharp finger at Harlan, who’s just about to say something mean. Marta knows that tilt of his head well, from afternoons spent with the family.

“I won’t take parenting advice from the man who produced _Walt,_ ” Linda warns him, because of course _she_ knows it, too. Linda knows her father a lot better than Walt does, or Joni - there’s a reason she’s his favourite, even more than much-mourned Neil, who has the advantage of being dead, so he can’t do anything to disappoint. She isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with him, even if she does usually take care to soften her blows.

What Ransom has in common with Harlan he mostly inherited from Linda, after all.

“I’ll keep schtum,” Harlan promises, “if you make your point.”

“I cut my soulmate off,” Linda says bluntly, startling Marta. “Seems harsh, right? But he was a mean piece of shit with an old name who wanted my new money and not a whole lot else - so I cut him off, and I met Richard two weeks later. I’ll keep Ransom on a leash if you want to do the same.”

The idea of Ransom on a leash is appealing in a way Marta doesn’t want to look at too closely. It thrums through her, a deep, satisfying chord striking somewhere in her core, not because she has any particular desire to see him collared and leashed - not really - but because she can see nothing but positives to holding the reins on the kind of power Ransom could wield if he wasn’t such a dick.

“It’s worth thinking about,” Harlan says, patting Marta’s shoulder. “Sleep on it, anyway.”

* * *

Marta wakes in the middle of the night, having stripped to her underwear because her skin is still on fire and she might be going mad, because her door opened. It’s quiet, so quiet that it shouldn’t have woken her even from her fitful, dream-filled sleep, but the heat of her skin is echoing back to her from the shadow in the doorway so she can’t stay asleep.

“Come in, Ransom,” she says, and he does. He closes the door behind him, softly, and remains in the shadows. She can see the vague shape of him - wearing a robe, eyes gleaming bright even in the gloom - and she can hear that his breath is gone even heavier and deeper than her own.

“I’m not used to not getting what I want,” he says, strained, as though the confession is being torn from him, cut out of his unwilling chest like the victims in some of Harlan’s books. “But I know my mother talked to you about cutting me off, and I gotta know- I gotta know if that’s what you want. If it is, I’m gone. I’ll leave you alone. But if it’s not, I’m gonna come over there and fuck you until we can think straight again, because I won’t lie, Cabrera! I haven’t been able to string two words together all fucking day, not since I touched you.”

Marta’s been lucid all day, weirdly, but she feels barely in control now. She feels like the only thing she wants in the world is to pull Ransom into the soft, low light of the little lamp on her bedside table, and strip him of that robe and whatever little he has on underneath, and press her fever-hot skin to the furnace of him. Something in her, that same satisfied thrum from earlier, sings out at the very idea of touching him, of being touched by him, but Linda’s voice is louder. 

_There’s nothing he likes less than having to think about anyone else’s feelings._

If she’s going to leash him - and she might, she hasn’t decided just yet - she’ll have to train him in. If she’s going to do that, she’ll have to bring herself under control, too.

“I don’t know,” she admits, hoarse with the effort of keeping her voice even. “I want- but I don’t know.”

She swallows, stretches her neck a little to try and stay focused, and he makes the tiniest of noises. The gleam of his eyes is trained on her neck, exposed now because her hair has fallen behind her shoulder, and it would be so easy to beckon him over so he could sink his even white teeth into the curve there, just low enough to hide it under the collar of her shirt tomorrow morning.

“Can I sleep here?” he asks, nodding jerkily toward the low couch in the far corner of the room. “I think, I don’t know, maybe exposure therapy? Is that something?”

She swallows again, mouth dry at the very idea of sharing a room with him. Sharing this space for these scant few minutes already has every inch of her screaming out to touch him, but maybe he’s onto something - if they can share a room without climbing on top of each other now, no matter how much it _hurts_ to resist, maybe they can restore some kind of normality.

She nods. Just once. Something that might be relief eases into the tight hold of his shoulders, and she feels it echo through her tensely curled fists.

He crosses the room in four long strides, curling up on his side with his broad back facing her, and is asleep before Marta’s even lain back down. 

_I gotta know if that’s what you want._ Is it? Marta doesn’t know. She needs to think, and until she calms down, she won’t be able to do that.

Her sleep, once Ransom is in the room, is deep and dreamless. She firmly does not think about that when Harlan knocks on her door the next morning to ask if she’s seen Ransom, pointedly not commenting on the way Ransom startles awake from couch to floor, cursing, and Marta startles awake and immediately struggles to pull the comforter up to preserve her modesty.

She hadn’t even thought about that last night, when it was Ransom. She’d just sat there, and he hadn’t looked away from her face until she showed off her neck. 

* * *

Marta does some research.

She’s always been good at it - always enjoyed it, too. It was part of what clicked with her and Harlan in the first days of their friendship, that she didn’t eschew his requests that she help out. She knows the layout of the library better than anyone in the house except him, she’s pretty sure, which is why she knows about the reading nook that only appears if you pull on the edition of _Alice in Wonderland_ that he spent nearly five thousand dollars on because it’s one of only a dozen to have escaped destruction after being printed with the wrong, pornographic illustrations, then on the ugly Modernist book of spy stories Walt had overpaid for for Harlan’s last birthday.

Frankly, Marta thinks _every_ book in the library cost more than it’s worth, because it’s the story that counts and not how it’s printed, but she’s spent enough time listening to Harlan haggle with auction houses over the phone to know what collectors have to say on it. 

Because no one but her and Harlan and Great Nana know about the nook, which is only really a half-shelf that recesses into the wall by about two feet but it’s around the corner of the L (because of course the library is an L-shaped room) so it’s a prime hiding space. Marta retreats there with all the books she thought sounded useful, plus the iPad Harlan owns but never bothers using unless it’s to make sure she’s not cheating him with made up obscure rules when they’re playing board games, plus a very large cup of coffee, courtesy of Fran, who’s seething on her behalf.

Marta’s not angry. She’s still too antsy for that, still caught on the verge of seeking Ransom out and making him take off his clothes for her. Mostly, she’s curious. She’s heard of cutting off a soulbond before, but never really thought about what that might entail. It never occurred to her that having a soulbond might be a bad thing, because her only example had been her parents, who had adored each other completely. 

So she starts to research. Then she starts to feel apprehensive. Then she starts to feel sick.

It’s right around then that Walt and Donna come into the library.

“Surely even _Ransom_ isn’t contrary enough to want one of _them_ as a wife?” Donna hisses, as subtle as she ever is. “Someone ought to shake some sense into that boy - Lord knows it won’t be your father, not with the way that little Mexican bitch has him wrapped around her finger, but I can’t understand why Linda hasn’t said anything! She should be trying to talk him around, to make him see _sense!”_

Donna is a great believer in _sense._ She talks about it all the time - the _sense_ of segregation and wall-building and separation. Donna loves _sense_. 

Walt grumbles something non-committal, and they continue to bicker in whispers, but Marta feels unsteady now. Linda, she knows, came to her with the offer of help last night for several reasons. She knows Ransom well enough to know that their match could be genuinely disastrous, for one, and for another, she’s been in Marta’s shoes, kind of, and has some genuine sympathy.

But, Marta knows, she also doesn’t want her precious son tied down to a poor brown nurse. Ransom is worth more than Marta is, in the strange algebra of how people like the Thrombeys perceive the world, and so even with a legitimate soulbond humming between them like a tuning fork, Marta will always be seen as a golddigger.

“Fine!” Walt snaps, finally losing his temper and showing the tiny bit of spine he possesses. “I’ll talk to him, _fine!”_

Ransom is not going to be intimidated by Walt, if only because not even Marta can imagine herself being intimidated by him. She waits until Donna clacks away and Walt grumbles after her, and unfolds herself from her comfortable perch in the nook.

All the research says that there’s a waiting period for bond-breaking, in most US states, and that unless it’s undertaken willingly by all involved parties, it can cause serious problems - she might not like Ransom, but Marta’s never been one to wish harm on people for something that isn’t really their fault. She doesn’t want to insist on this if he’s unsure, and wake up to find he’s suffered a massive stroke just because of something _she_ isn’t even entirely sure about. That’s why she’s trailing a little behind Walt and Donna, and slips away up to Harlan’s study while they go looking for him in the downstairs office - she knows Ransom is up there, with Harlan, and doesn’t think too closely about _how_ she knows.

He’s looming over Harlan’s desk when she lets herself in, and she doesn’t think too closely about the way all the hard lines of his body soften as soon as she closes the door. She’s going to have abs like an Abercrombie model herself, she thinks with a small smile, by the time this is done with - she can’t untense unless he’s at hand. One more thing to file away just out of sight.

“Walt is going to try and talk some sense into you,” she says, taking her usual chair by the side of Harlan’s desk. “Donna browbeat him into it.”

The curl of Ransom’s lip is equal parts disdainful and furious, and Marta narrows her eyes at him.

“It won’t do anyone any good if you lose your temper with him,” she says, not quite a warning - just an observation. A true one.

“Yeah,” Ransom agrees easily, not quite looking her in the eye when he turns his best shit-eating rich boy smile on her. “But it’ll feel _great.”_

“And it will give Donna the satisfaction of being right about you,” Harlan points out mildly. “She’ll probably have something obnoxiously disgusting to say about how a savage like you deserves a darkie soulmate.”

“So eloquent, Pops,” Ransom says. “Making a point about the Nazi by being racist. How do you do it?”

Marta, privately, agrees - she doesn’t call Harlan on his thoughtless, old man racism nearly as much as she should, and certainly no Thrombey ever does. Usually they join in. 

Except Ransom, now she thinks about it. Maybe it’s just because he holds his tongue when she’s in the room, which wouldn’t surprise her because he’s always been quite open about wanting to take her to bed, but he’s usually the least terrible of them about her being Latina. _She doesn’t speak Portuguese._

“Well,” she says, “there’s already so much drama about all of this, I don’t think you should add to it by murdering your uncle.”

“I promise to only rough him up a _little,”_ Ransom wheedles, but he’s smiling. Marta knows better than to trust a word he says when he’s smiling.

* * *

“So when’re you gonna cut him off?”

Meg, sitting on the railing with a cigarette, again.

“There’s a process,” Marta says. “I’ve been looking into it.”

“Uh, you realise Granddad can like… make that disappear? Money can do amazing things, Marta.”

Jacob, who Marta forgets as often as she can, is sitting a little ways away on his phone. Every time she speaks, she can feel him lift his gaze to try and burn a hole into the back of her head. A truly delightful child.

Joni is on the phone inside. She’s stoned, Marta’s pretty sure, talking loud and laughing about- _and that stupid motherfucker, Linda’s boy? Have you_ heard? _Yah, I know! Can you believe it?_

“God, just get it _done,”_ Meg sighs. “Ransom’s such a dick - he’s probably the worst of all of us, you know?”

* * *

“Hey, sweetheart,” Fran calls, when Marta closes the kitchen door behind herself. “You ready?”

“Definitely,” Marta says. “I think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t get out of here tonight.”

She wants to be at home, in her own bed, with Alice’s music bleeding through the wall and Mama’s over-stewed tea stinking up the kitchen. She wants to shower using her own soap, and she wants to have fifteen minutes to herself so she can come, just once, to take the edge off. 

She just doesn’t completely trust herself to drive home safely, even in her shitty little car. Fran offered to tail her the whole way home, just in case something happens, and Marta accepted her offer right on the verge of tears with pure, desperate relief. 

“You could stay,” Ransom says, once more in the door, once more in the shadows. His eyes are on her face, and her skin feels half a size too small again. “See what happens.”

“Could she really?” Fran sniffs. “And just what do you think might happen, _Hugh?”_

“Fran,” he says, leaning forward, one big shoulder braced against the doorframe. “Frances. Francesca. Whatever. Fuck you. I’m talking to Nurse Cabrera.”

“Not with that attitude you’re not,” Marta says, surprising herself - and Fran, and Ransom, if the sudden stillness of the room is any indication. Marta’s never been one to stand up for herself if it means causing tension, but there’s something about the sharpness of Ransom’s gaze that makes her want to remind him that he can’t always be in charge. She wants to bring him to heel. _Leash him._ She suppresses a shiver, but only barely. “I’m going home.”

“Can I come?”

“Did I invite you?”

He grits his teeth - she can see the clench of his jaw, the way his throat works. She wants to follow the line of that tense tendon under the collar of his stupid floral ditsy-print shirt. 

“No,” he admits, like he’s choking on it. “Guess you didn’t. See you tomorrow, then. Best of five?”

“You’re staying on?”

“Figure I might hang around for a while,” he says, and if Fran’s hand wasn’t on Marta’s elbow she would have forgotten the rest of the world existed, just for a second. “See what happens.”

Fran follows her home, waits until she’s in the door. Marta’s hands don’t stop shaking the whole time.

* * *

[Ransom Drysdale]: made u my in case of emergency 

[Me]: ??? y???

[Me]: who gave u this no???

[Ransom Drysdale]: granddad, obviously. soulmate privs. make me ur ICE.

[Me]: y would i do that

[Me]: r u even good in a crisis?

[Ransom Drysdale]: lol no but i’d look hot carrying u from a burning building or whatever

* * *

“So are you gonna bone him?”

Alice has taken the news a lot better than their mom has, in that she’s decided to roll with whatever Marta decides to do about it, cheering her on every step of the way. Mama’s more worried, both because she’s one of the lucky ones who had a perfect match on the other end of her bond, and because she’s afraid of what the Thrombeys might do to Marta when Harlan’s not looking.

Marta can’t blame her.

“I’m not gonna bone him, Alice,” Marta sighs, stretched out on her bed. She’s been thinking about it - a lot, okay, yes, and maybe she bought a new vibrator the day after Ransom walked across the hall buck-naked, fresh out of the shower, when he knew Harlan was taking a nap and Fran was out so the only person who might see him was Marta, but so long as no one ever asks her about that specifically she’ll never have to lie so no one need ever know. The more she thinks about it, the more lifting her skirt and letting Ransom make her come feels like letting him win, and the more determined she is not to sleep with him.

Why is she competing with her soulmate? Who knows. What’s the prize at the end of the track? Who knows. But Marta’s going to win. She knows that, at least.

“You gonna dump him?”

_No._ “I haven’t decided yet.”

“It’s a _lot_ of money.”

“Yup.”

“And he’s super hot, too.”

“Yup.”

“So unless he’s evil, I mean, live separate lives, hook up sometimes, be rich and happy, you know?”

There’s something to that, probably.

* * *

“You’re bullying him.”

Marta looks up at Harlan from under her hair, huffing something that might be a laugh but could just as easily be a bad mood. She hasn’t decided yet.

“I’m sticking a needle in your arm right this second,” she says. “Maybe don’t accuse me of something terrible until I’m not in a position to kill you via lethal overdose.”

“As if you would,” he says, grinning. “And it’s not a _bad_ thing - maybe he’d be less of a shithead if someone had bullied him as a kid.”

“Maybe we don’t advocate for bullying?”

It’s been two months since the barbeque, and Marta hasn’t been bullying Ransom - she’s just been keeping him at arm’s length, right along with all the other Thrombeys, while she conducts further investigations into the breaking of their bond. 

The more she looks into it, the more doubts she has. Maybe this _is_ just something she and Ransom have to deal with - the more she reads, the more anxious she gets. The more anxious she gets, the less convinced she is that this is something she should pursue. The less convinced she is, the more dangerous this all becomes for both of them.

As for Ransom, well, he’s around a lot more than he ever used to be, and Harlan needles him a lot more than he used to. He’s getting better at biting his tongue, though, and doesn’t storm off when he loses at cards or Go or whatever stupid trivia quizzes Harlan likes to goad them into. 

He’s also shown what seems to be a genuine interest in Harlan’s work, beyond the gorier research. For some reason, that worries Marta.

“We’ve all let him away with being himself for too long,” Harlan says, as if he isn’t the most egregious example of _being yourself_ Marta’s ever met. She doesn’t know anyone as entirely, independently their own self as Harlan Thrombey, and while he’s charming enough to get away with that now, Marta has heard the stories and read the autobiography. He’s totally unashamed of how he behaved in the past, even as just reading about events fifty years passed made Marta cringe, trying to reconcile that asshole with her friend. “Yeah, yeah, don’t look at me like that - it took meeting Eloise to make me realise what a nightmare I was. Maybe being forced to see you as a real person is having the same effect on Ransom.”

Marta wonders how it is that Harlan can’t hear his own bullshit, sometimes.

* * *

[Ransom]: so ur cuban right

[Me]: yeah y

[Ransom]: there’s a cuban restaurant opening in town nxt week, thought we could bring ur mom and sis

[Ransom]: gotta meet the fam

[Me]: y do u want 2 meet my mom

[Ransom]: soulmate. did u forget??? 

* * *

“Walt thinks it’s a good idea,” Harlan’s saying, when Marta arrives to check his blood pressure after lunch. “Says it’ll make us more money than any other offer.”

“Walt’s only pushing for Disney because he thinks you and Grandma named him _after_ Disney,” Ransom says, idly mean, as he thumbs through a screenplay. Script. Whatever. It’s an adaptation of one of Harlan’s books, and while Walt absolutely does not have the authority to sign off on something like that, he does tend to accept more… treatments? Maybe? Is that what they’re called? Than seems tasteful. “Holy shit, this is so bad. Hey, Marta, come look at this shit-”

He holds out the book to her, folded back, and points to a section of staging directions. It’s for one of Harlan’s earlier books, Marta realises, when he was in one of his hardboiled noir phases, and the whole thing reads like a Twitter thread on what not to do in a film noir.

“It’s a little _Sin City,”_ she admits, biting down on a grin when Ransom catches her eye, eyebrows raised incredulously. “What! It’s all wrong!”

“Didn’t have you pegged as a Frank Miller fan, is all,” he says, but he’s smiling - and not eating shit with it. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen that directed at anyone but Harlan before. Strange.

“I’m a Jessica Alba fan,” she says, just to see how he’ll react. True to form, he doesn’t disappoint - he groans, rolls his eyes, tosses aside the script.

“Point is, it’s junk,” Ransom says. “He’s wild to get into movies because everyone has always told him that’s where the megamillions are, but he’s got taste like a teenage boy. If HBO come calling, I’d say _maybe_ consider hearing them out, but this shit? Granddad. C’mon. You should be _begging_ me to beat him up for this, even if Cabrera won’t let me beat him up for last month.”

_Last month,_ when Walt finally decided to _talk some sense_ into Ransom and was lucky to get out of it with a black eye - Marta had stepped between them, touching Ransom’s bare skin for the first time since the first time to wrap her hand around his wrist when he drew back for a second punch. She doesn’t know what he said and Harlan won’t tell her, but she does know that she and Ransom both kept their feet, the second time they touched, and she also knows that she can almost taste what he’s feeling when they’re in the same room now.

Linda quietly arranged for Marta to start seeing a therapist after that. Discreet, expensive, and without a word to _any_ of the men in her family. Marta wishes Linda was someone she could trust, because she’s so close to being someone Marta likes, other than that.

“If you think you could do a better job-”

“Maybe I could!”

“Well then,” Harlan says. “Prove it. You’ve got that fancy degree from Harvard, Ransom - try putting it to use.”

Ransom hesitates, eyes flickering to Marta, and then he leans forward, toward Harlan. The competitiveness between them hasn’t faded at all in the past few months, but it has shifted in a way she can’t quite understand. It seems to be doing both of them good, though. At least, she hopes it is.

“Alright then,” he says. “Where do I start?”

  
  


* * *

Here’s the thing about Meg Thrombey.

Meg wants so badly to feel hard done by, but she isn’t. Hard done by people don’t have grandfathers who pay for them to study things that don’t lead into steady jobs at elite private colleges in Massachusetts, and hard done by people don’t have a brand new car every year, and hard done by people don’t have the _choice_ of caring about things like rent hikes and health insurance costs and how those two things together mean their sister breaking her ankle playing soccer could bankrupt their family.

Meg doesn’t get this.

“I mean, just bring her to that hospital Donna brought Jacob to when he broke his wrist,” Meg says while Marta struggles into her coat so she can meet Alice at the hospital twenty-two miles away where their insurance covers an operation that should, hopefully, allow Alice to keep playing soccer once she heals and rehabs, so she won’t lose her scholarship. It’s only a partial, but without it, Marta doesn’t know for sure that they’ll be able to afford college for Alice anymore, which feels like such _bullshit._

The hospital Jacob Thrombey attended is the top private clinic in the state, of course. Meg, who’s never wanted for anything _real_ in her life, can’t understand why that’s out of Marta’s reach.

“I’ve got to go,” is all Marta says, because otherwise she’ll throw up on Meg’s “thrifted” Moschino mules, which cost more than Marta’s brand new Nikes even though the suede is scuffed most of the way off. “Tell your grandfather I’ll be back tonight-”

“I can manage one night without your tender care, my dear,” Harlan assures her, coming down the stairs with her scarf in his hands. “Please, be careful on the road - I know you hate driving in the rain.”

Ransom, of course, is waiting outside in his ugly car, and he waves when Marta nearly trips over herself on the top step.

“Hey, Cabrera!” he calls, beckoning to her. “Cababy texted me, said you drive like shit and she’s bored - you need a ride?”

He’s supposed to be in Vermont for some kind of conference this week, but Marta’s not really surprised to see him. She knows that he and Alice have been texting since they met, and Alice told her he’s been great company via text since she broke her ankle last week. It really, truly weirds her out, that Ransom gets on so well with her sister - but then, Alice is _cool._ She gets on well with everyone.

“I can’t believe him,” Meg says. “Stay sane, I guess, if you’ve got to endure _that.”_

At least Ransom is _aware_ that he’s never had to struggle for anything tangible, and while he routinely sneers at Marta’s cheap clothes and her shitty car, he does it in a weird, matter-of-fact way that at least feels honest. It means his rare, peculiar flashes of concern feel a lot more genuine than Meg’s regular sighing sympathy, and all those petitions she shares on Instagram. 

If Ransom is Linda’s son, with added charm - direct, selfish, smarter than anyone gives them credit for being - then Meg is Joni’s, without the honesty to admit that she doesn’t _really_ give a damn.

“I’ll call you when we get there,” Marta says, to Harlan, not to Meg. 

“Cababy’s hospital sucks,” Ransom says, as soon as Marta closes the car door. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed better insurance? I could’ve added you to mine, and then she’d be covered as a dependent.”

“How-?”

“Soulmates, Cabrera,” he reminds her. “Jeez, I know you want rid of me, but at least take advantage of a guy while you’ve got him on a leash.”

That hits her with as much sudden, shuddering heat as the very first touch of his skin on hers had, searing and liquid at the centre of her. If they were going anywhere other than to see her sister in _hospital,_ she’d tell him to pull over and climb into his lap.

“You don’t hate this,” she says, stunned, as he pulls out of the driveway and onto the road. “Ransom! You don’t _hate_ this?”

“I’ve wanted to fuck you for ages,” he points out. “So like, my initial reaction wasn’t the abject horror yours was. And I like you, Cabrera. You’re smart. The old man knew what was up when he hired you. Why would I hate this?”

“Ransom, come on-”

“I grew up knowing soulmates could be shit,” he says, shrugging. “My mom never hid the whole bullshit with whatever Kennedy wannabe she was tied to back in college, so, you know, whatever, I knew it could suck.”

His neck is gone red, and with the way he’s hunching his shoulders he looks… Embarrassed? 

“But we were always told that people with soulbonds are only born to bonded parents, right? So I figured Linda and Richard weren’t going to cause me that kind of trouble, so what did it matter if I was a piece of shit?”

And what a piece of shit he is, except for the ways he isn’t. 

“Oh my God,” she says. “Oh my God, Ransom, have you been- have you been doing all this stuff for _my_ sake?”

“I mean, I also want to push Walt out of the company because I fucking hate him, and I can’t think of anything funnier than taking Blood Like Wine from him. But yeah, I guess so? Aren’t you supposed to like, be your best self for your soulmate? Isn’t that the point?”

Harlan always says that Eloise made him the best possible version of himself. What the _fuck._

“Just- get me to the hospital,” she says. “I need to think.”

Ransom gives another of those weird, tense shrugs. 

“I’ve waited this long,” he says. “Take all the time you need, Marta.”

* * *

[ICE Ransom]: i know its like 3am

[ICE Ransom]: and i am waaaaaaaasted lol

[ICE Ransom]: but i really do like u plenty Cabrera

[ICE Ransom]: and ur tits are incredible

[Me]: ill kill u in ur sleep

* * *

“No, for real,” Marta says sarcastically, her phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear. “I spent last night at a gala gallery opening. Who the fuck do you think I am?”

_“I think you’re a saint who’s putting up with a baby Nazi since Granddad took Jacob in,”_ Ransom says, and she can hear the way he’s rolling his eyes. _“Let me pick you up Friday and bring you out to dinner.”_

“I’m not coming to Boston, Ransom.”

“ _I wasn’t going to ask again,”_ he lies with cheerful transparency. “ _Cabrera, come on, let’s celebrate Cababy getting back on her feet! Her and Camama can come too, if you need an incentive to keep your hands off me.”_

“Ransom,” she mouths to Harlan, who’s got that knowing look again. “You’ve already asked Alice, haven’t you? You _know_ she’s always down to have you buy dinner.”

“ _I know my audience,”_ Ransom agrees. _“Did you use that gift card I gave you for your birthday? Blow off work and buy something nice if you didn’t.”_

“No.”

_“Pleeeeease?”_

“You know I don’t like lies,” she reminds him, accepting a plate from Fran - they’re dining _informally_ this evening, the two of them and Harlan and Great Nana tucked into the parlour she likes best with terrible trays on fold-out legs that have been in the house since the 70s over their laps. Marta’s running a little behind, because Ransom’s been annoying her on the phone for the past twenty minutes, and Jacob won’t take his meals with them if there’s anyone but Harlan and Great Nana at the table, so he has a tray in his room or something. Marta makes a point of not knowing. 

* * *

[ICE Ransom]: linda says jacob won’t eat dinner if ur at the table

[ICE Ransom]: and that granddad allows that shit??

[Me]: shocking that he doesn’t punish his grandson for disrespecting a member of his household staff

[Me]: wonder when he started doing that, Hugh

* * *

Marta arrives down with her bag over her shoulder on Friday evening - browbeaten into accepting Ransom’s invitation to dinner, with Alice and their mom buzzing in her ear all week and Harlan _winking_ at her - to find Ransom already in town. He’s heaving Jacob out of the house by his collar and his waistband, angrier than she’s ever seen him look.

“You think _I’m_ a monster, you Nazi piece of _shit?”_ he’s snarling. “Do you even know where Great Nana’s _from,_ you stupid little bastard? Do you understand any of the bullshit you read online?”

Marta watches in genuine astonishment as Ransom kicks open the front door and tosses Jacob face-first onto the gravelled driveway. 

“You’re a fucking coward,” Jacob spits - literally spits, trying to get rid of whatever he swallowed when he landed. “You should have cut the bond with that little wetback bitch the moment it was formed, but you’d rather bring filth like that into the family than risk being cuckolded like your fucking _mother-”_

Marta catches Ransom by the arm when he takes off down the steps in Jacob’s direction, her nails digging hard into the tense muscle and tender skin of his forearm. She can feel his pulse under the heel of her hand, fast like a heart attack.

“You’ll kill him,” she warns him. “He’s just a kid. A stupid, horrible kid, but still just a kid.”

“He’s a stupid, horrible kid who thinks he’s _right,”_ Ransom points out, lip still curled and every inch of him still rigid. “Shit, Marta, I’m at least aware that I say a lot of shit that’s fucking terrible, and mostly I don’t care! But he _absolutely_ cares, he just cares about causing as much-”

“About righting wrongs-!”

“Enough!”

Harlan, standing above them all on the balcony, doesn’t even look angry. 

“Get inside,” he says. “Now. My office.”

Harlan took Jacob in because Walt and Donna outright asked it of him, not because they view his behaviour and the recent reports from his school as worrying, but because they think he’ll be a _good influence_ on Harlan. That means they think he’ll convince Harlan to fire Marta and force her and Ransom to break their bond faster than is safe. Harlan won’t - he’s too much a contrarian to do something because someone is trying to force his arm, even if Marta wasn’t guiltily sure that he likes her a lot more than he likes Jacob - but it’s still made it uncomfortable to have Jacob here, hovering and being horrible.

Jacob scrambles to his feet and takes off for Harlan’s office - not Harlan’s study, where Jacob is not welcome. Ransom stays, though, staring down at Marta’s hands on his bare forearm. 

“It would be so great,” he says, sounding strange in a way she can’t quite understand, “if we could have _five fucking minutes_ to figure this out without my family looming over us.”

And then he goes. Marta goes home, confused, and Ransom arrives to pick her and Alice and their mom up right on time, wearing a new shirt with the sleeves all the way down, and firmly buttoned at the cuffs. He’s still angry, even if Alice and Mama can’t see it, simmering under Marta’s skin like a sunburn, but he won’t let slip a single thing that happened after she left, not even when she sends Alice and Mama inside and sits in the car with him.

“Please?”

“It’s between us,” he says, his voice low and cool, at odds with the set of his jaw and the way his brow has drawn down over his eyes. “I’m working on it. Do you trust me?”

“No.”

He laughs. It’s a shock of noise in the shadow of the car, and she’s relieved when his shoulders drop.

“Not gonna be sick on me, huh? Damn, Cabrera - ice cold.”

“Ransom-”

“I keep telling you,” he says, turning to face her, one arm over the dash and the other coming up to curl around her seat. She’s never been quite so close to him before, and she digs her fingers into the conditioned leather of the seat to keep from reaching up to touch his jaw, the straight line of his nose, the pink of his mouth. “I’m working on it, Cabrera. I don’t need you to trust me, but I do need you to trust _that.”_

* * *

Jacob is out of the house and boarding at his fancy prep school when Marta gets to work on Monday morning. She doesn’t know if she should thank Harlan or blame Ransom for that.

* * *

“Hey, so, I guess I just wanted to check in? Make sure you weren’t like, overwhelmed by all of this or whatever?”

Marta doesn’t think she’s ever had an actual conversation with Joni, which makes this even weirder. Joni is weird in general, and a lot touchier than Marta likes, but this? This is strange.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Marta says carefully, putting the low-sodium popcorn Harlan hates but which kills his craving for salty foods into a little bowl to add to his lunch tray. “It’s being handled.”

“Yah, it’s just, I know you’re Catholic-”

“I’m agnostic, thanks.”

“Oh! I guess I assumed, because, well, you _know!”_ she says, giving this weird, airy little laugh, as if it isn’t racist to assume that Marta’s Catholic just because she’s Latina. “So, anyway, I was talking to Meg, and _she_ said that you’re kind of dragging your heels on it a little, and I figured, well, maybe she just needs a supportive ear - _or_ I figured it was a Catholic thing, but obviously not! Haha.”

“It’s being handled, thank you,” Marta says calmly, wondering why they’re all so invested in making sure Marta breaks the bond. Is Ransom avoiding them, or are they all afraid of him after he hit Walt? Either seems likely. Hell, _both_ seem likely. “Just like I told Meg.”

It isn’t being handled, at all, is the thing. Marta’s not sure what it is Ransom wants, but she doesn’t think it’s a clean out - and that means cutting the bond is almost guaranteed to do major harm to one or the other of them. She’s not so sure that she wants a clean out, either, which is much scarier than the risk of stroke.

Ransom is a lot easier to like than she’s comfortable with. He’s terrible, but not to her, not anymore, and her family seem to genuinely like him. He’s mean and thoughtless and angry, God, he’s so angry and violent, but he’s got all of that on a short leash. If it was just him and Harlan and maybe Linda and Meg, she could see it - but as long as she’s tied to Ransom, there’s Walt and Donna and Jacob, and Joni, and, of course, Richard, who weirds her out on a level she doesn’t think is _creepy_ but also isn’t _not_ creepy.

She doesn’t want to be a Thrombey. She knows Ransom doesn’t want to be a Cabrera. That leaves them with a stalemate.

* * *

Walt goes missing on a Wednesday.

He doesn’t come home from work, which Marta gathers isn’t wildly unusual - he and Donna have a fractious marriage, so his sleeping at the office isn’t unheard of. It takes until he misses three meetings in a row the next morning, one with a Fox Studios man, for people to notice his absence, because everyone knows Walt would never miss a meeting with a movie man.

Harlan reports this to Marta over the Go board on Thursday afternoon, looking at her with more speculation than concern in his face.

“Well, _I_ didn’t kidnap him, if that’s what you’re implying,” she says, smiling a little. Harlan likes to keep things light, until he loses his temper, and Marta is struck once again by how much Ransom takes after his grandfather. Could he grow more into the kind of man Harlan is? Is that why Harlan has been _encouraging_ them?

Does Harlan think Marta can turn Ransom into a better man, the way his beloved Eloise did for him? 

That’s not what being soulmates is supposed to be, though. Maybe it is for rich people, or maybe that’s what men think, but Marta thinks she deserves better than to be a walking self-help manual for Ransom and his white boy woes. Even if it _was_ possible to love a man better - the very idea makes Marta want to barf, no lies needed - there’s something in Ransom that can’t be made better. If there wasn’t, if he was just a shithead with a heart of gold or whatever, Marta wouldn’t be sitting here half-convinced that he’s killed his uncle.

He picked her up and brought her out last night. Complained that his suspensions were busted, that the car was riding low on the road, and that it felt like he had a dead weight in the trunk. Does that make Marta an accessory after the fact? Is she now- is culpable the word?

Even if she is, can she keep her stomach under check long enough to get through saying “ _As his soulmate I cannot be compelled to testify against Mr Hugh Ransom Drysdale,_ ” if a police officer tries to question her? And if she refuses, does she make them both _look_ guilty, even if Ransom had nothing to do with it?

She takes a long, deep breath in through her nose. Her stomach isn’t churning (yet), but she feels uneasy. She knows that she’ll _keep_ feeling uneasy until she sees Ransom again, but he isn’t due home until Saturday morning and she isn’t taking a train into Boston to demand answers when that’s just two more days. She can handle two more days. Right? Sure she can.

She does not deserve this. For the first time in months, since Ransom appeared in her bedroom door on the Fourth of July, Marta resents him.

* * *

[Ransom]: u hear about walt?? smart money on the kid

[Ransom]: richard thinks its suicide but i dont think walt had the spine

[Ransom]: ur phone die or something???

[Ransom]: Marta??

* * *

“Kinda freaked me out there, Cabrera,” Ransom says, in the shadows of her building’s leaky porch on Friday morning. “Not texting back - were you even opening my messages?”

There’s no one within twenty yards of them, but she still plants a hand in the middle of his chest and pushes him back toward his car.

“You’re driving me to work this morning.”

“Uh, no shit, why do you think I’m here? Are you okay? I was freaking out when you wouldn’t respond to my texts - I even rang the house, talked to Fran. She told me she was glad you’d come to your senses, but that you were at least _alive._ ”

“Surprised you didn’t just text Alice.”

“I did! She said you were acting weird, which is why I’m here a day earlier than planned with about a thousand work calls to make once we’ve talked about why you’re suddenly ignoring me.”

Once they’re stopped at a red light, Marta wraps her hand around Ransom’s wrist. His breath gusts out of him all at once, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel, and the look he gives her cuts right through her.

“Shit, Marta, give a guy some _warning!”_

“Did you kill Walt?”

The car is newly washed and valeted. There’s even a new little air freshener tree dangling from the rearview. 

Ransom breaths in to steady himself, deep and slow through his nose.

“If I did?” he asks. “Would that be so terrible?”

“ _Of course-”_

“Not in a moral sense, or whatever,” he says, shaking off her hold with a dismissive wave. “I don’t really give a shit about my immortal soul or any of that, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. But is the world worse off for Walt being gone out of it? And am I demonstrably a worse person if I had something to do with getting rid of him?”

“Ransom, _please.”_

“I don’t want to incriminate myself by even joking about this,” he says sharply. “And you’ve outright told me you don’t trust me, Marta.”

“If you did it,” she says, “why?”

He keeps his eyes on the road, but it feels like an excuse.

“Couple of reasons,” he says at last. “I’ve always hated Walt - really fucking wish Neil had come out of the accident instead of him. At least Neil had a sense of humour.”

“You hate most people. That isn’t why you’d do it. If you did it.”

“Alright, okay. Reason number two: Granddad’s books should be worth twice as much as they are. Blood Like Wine should be the biggest independent mystery and thriller publisher in the world, but it’s not, because Walt’s wasted the past fifteen years chasing screen deals he knows Granddad won’t go for instead of growing the business in ways that make sense for what’s already established. He’s actively damaging the interests of the company and of Granddad’s legacy.”

Legacy matters to Ransom - even if it’s only in service of his own wealth. The more valuable Harlan’s estate is, the more valuable Ransom’s slice will be when the time comes. That feels a lot closer to the truth than just the latent hatred with which he regards most of his family. 

“That would be part of it. If you did do it. Why else?”

He finally takes his eyes off the road, looking at her like she’s stupid.

“After everything him and his spawn and his bitch wife have said to you since we bonded,” he says, and she wants him to stop. “You _know,_ Marta. You _know_ , because I know you can feel the way I react whenever we’re in the same fucking _building,_ and you _still_ need to ask why?”

* * *

[Ransom]: this cant be surprising

[Ransom]: Cabrera. Cmon.

[Ransom]: u might hate me but at least im hot?

[Ransom]: Marta. Please.

* * *

If Ransom killed Walt _for Marta’s sake-_

Well. _Well._

She spends half an hour puking in the downstairs bathroom, once he leaves, and spends the rest of the time until she sees him next gearing up to confront him.

“If you’re serious about this,” she says, dragging him outside by the sleeve while the others are having lunch - damn, Fran made pumpkin soup, Marta _loves_ Fran’s pumpkin soup - and stopping well away from the house, to try and avoid snooping Thrombeys. “You’ve got to be completely honest with me.”

It’s been just over a week since Ransom not-quite confessed to murdering his uncle for treating Marta badly. They haven’t spoken a word in that time. Or, rather, Marta hasn’t spoken to _him._ He’s been sending her streams of texts, calling her and leaving her voicemails that vary from calm requests that she call him back to furious demands that she at least learn some fucking _manners_ and call him back.

“I don’t know how to make you realise that I _have_ been honest with you,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “I keep telling you, Cabrera - I don’t give a shit what people think about me. I know who I am, and what I am. That’s what’s on the table, here. I don’t expect you to be thrilled about it, but I do expect you to face it like a fucking _adult.”_

“Oh, so it’s _so easy_ to accept that my soulmate is a- a _murderer?_ Is someone who claims to have killed _for me?”_

“Partly for you,” he says. “And no, it’s not easy, I get that - but this is what we’ve got to work with.”

She clenches her fists, closes her eyes tight to try and calm down.

“I can feel it when you do that,” he says quietly. “You know how you talk about me being angry all the time? So are you. You hate them just as much as I do, you just don’t let yourself feel it. You’re going to be dead of a heart attack by the time you’re forty with the way you bottle everything up.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A concern,” he says, smiling just a little when she opens her eyes. Shit. She knew she could feel him under her skin, could taste the bitterness of his loathing and the salt of his fury, but she hadn’t considered that it went both ways. That was stupid of her. “You’ve turned everything over for me, Cabrera, just like Saint Eloise did for the old man. Well, not quite. But you know what I mean. Seeing the world with you like a little angel sitting on my shoulder has given me some perspective.”

“I’m a shit angel if you felt the need to _murder_ on my behalf.”

“Consider me your shoulder devil then, whatever. _I don’t care._ But don’t shut me out. You’re as stuck with me as I am with you, I’m just asking less of you than you are of me.”

“Asking _less-!”_

“Have I asked _anything,_ Marta? Since this whole fucking mess started?”

He’s inserted himself into her life, making nice with Alice and Mama, but… No. That isn’t asking anything of her. That’s going out of his way to behave well with her family, who he probably never even considered before their bond. Beyond that, has anything changed for her? Anything at all, except that the Thrombeys pay her a little more attention because she’s one of them now, in some way?

He hasn’t asked a single thing. Until now.

“I didn’t ask you to be nicer or to control your temper,” she says slowly. “And you’re the one who’s benefited most from that, right? Look at you. You’re probably going to take over the company if Walt doesn’t turn up. You walked into the career Harlan’s been teeing up for you since you left college, and you’re _good_ at it. If you want to blame me or resent me for that, go ahead. I’m glad of it for your sake. But after this? After _this?_ You think you can stand there and say you haven’t asked anything of me?”

She grabs his beautiful face in her hands and drags him down to her height. He’s so big, tall and broad-shouldered and strong, but he does exactly as he’s told the moment she lays hands on him. 

She kisses him. Hard, but brief. She’s never felt anything like it, and sets that aside for later, when she’s alone.

“I think you should stay in Boston for a while,” she says, while his eyes are still closed and he’s chasing after her. “Until your grandfather’s birthday, maybe. We both need time to think this over.”

“I’m your fucking _soulmate,_ Marta! You can’t just toss me aside because that doesn’t suit you-”

“I’m not,” she says. “We’ll talk again the day after Harlan’s birthday. Stay safe, Ransom.”

* * *

[ICE Ransom]: god i wanna hate u right now

[ICE Ransom]: never wanted to fuck u more tho

[ICE Ransom]: see u for the afterparty then

* * *

Marta should probably be upset that she _does_ kind of hate her soulmate now, but she isn’t. She doesn’t hate him completely, and there’s a part of her that’s bigger than her hate that’s now completely fascinated with the idea of training him in - if she’s made this much progress with him without even consciously trying, murder aside, what can she do if she’s _concentrating_ on him? There’s a whole world of possibilities waiting for them on the other side of Harlan’s birthday party, even if she hates the part of Ransom that she knows will always run beyond anyone’s control, because he enjoys cruelty too much to let go of it.

After all, she thinks, bringing a tray with Harlan’s lunch and midday meds up to his study - everyone hates Ransom. The staff, particularly, because he’s so incredibly terrible to them.


End file.
